


Dwell in the House of the Lord (The Day You Always Remember remix)

by Hannah



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-13
Updated: 2010-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannah/pseuds/Hannah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during <i>Curse of the Black Pearl</i>: the aftermath of the great battle between the Navy and the pirates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dwell in the House of the Lord (The Day You Always Remember remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneiriad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/gifts).
  * Inspired by [But For The Grace Of God](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/700) by oneiriad. 



> Thanks to my beta readers for their suggestions and notes.

An outstanding tradition of Port Royal's inns was a deep understanding of the needs of the officers of the Crown, and in consequence, a lenient and kind position towards payment. For this, the men from the Dauntless were grateful – every single one of them, down to the last drop.

Mullroy has always been grateful for Murtogg's company – always since their fortunate meeting before crossing over the ocean from cold, safe England to the hot, blighted Caribbean, one island for another. Having someone around to talk to on long nights and sweltering days made them easier to bear, days when the idea of a safe home blurred with the memories and nothing seemed quite real. The inn kept many large lanterns hung about, and the moon was still nearly half-full, but there was more dark in the world than they'd thought. No candle could light it all away and no amount of moonlight could keep quiet all the sounds of the night.

Despite all the cheering and joy of the previous engagement with the pirates now filling the cells, no one was joyful now. None of them dared to be, not even with everyone pressing them for stories of the heroism and action that had taken place, but not in any manner they felt worthy to share until they were a bit deeper into their cups.

They'd both taken lives, before, on purpose, in battle and by accident. And from pirates and because of pirates, more than once. Mullroy had been in this very same inn, just weeks earlier, drinking to forget and calm down from the first escape of Jack – of Mister Sparrow, running from the bullet, one of which had hit and killed a young child. The bullet could have been fired off by Mullroy himself. With no way to know, there was only one way to stop his hands from shaking. And it was what Murtogg and Mullroy both were doing now, along with so many others.

If he had been betting man, Mullroy would have put money down that Commodore Norrington was in the same situation – if in privacy and with a better class of drink than this, but in the same situation just the same. Perhaps without people asking him for stories, on account of the privacy and whatnot.

Murtogg took another drink. Mullroy followed. And those who hadn't been there that night waited for more stories.

"We never saw him," Mullroy said, "Not the Captain. Mister Turner said it was Mister Sparrow –"

"Captain Sparrow, it was," Murtogg put in.

"Captain Sparrow, if you like, thank you, had killed him, with the shot he'd saved ten years for that one moment. That single shot, saving it for the man who'd mutinied under his command."

"He had this crown," Murtogg mimed, placing a glorious _chapeau_ atop his head, "when he came back from the island. We couldn't well let him keep it."

The young boy leaned in. "What stories did he tell?"

"He told us," Mullroy took another long, deep drink, "of his time in Singapore, and how he got off the spit of land Barbossa marooned him on, and he told us," Mullroy stopped to laugh. "He told us about these mermaids."

"I've seen mermaids," the boy said.

"You have?"

"Yes, here in the islands, there's a place they come and if you go the right time of year, you can see them. They swim after the ship just like dolphins do."

"And you saw a mermaid swim after your ship just like a dolphin."

"Yes."

"And here I thought you meant there's a lovely inn in Tortuga what keeps a mermaid in a tank ready to satisfy everyone's courage and you can feed her a fish for a penny." He took a drink, and then another. He knew that just a scant few weeks ago he would have protested the boy had seen dolphins and been confused but now he knew he couldn't be so certain.

"Have you ever been to Tortuga?"

"No."

"Maybe they have a mermaid there just like that."

"Captain Sparrow said he saw them near the Spanish colony up in Florida," Murtogg said. "All through there."

"He did," Mullroy nodded, remembering the rest of the night. "He told us how they sang to him from the water." And he hadn't wanted to believe Mister Captain Jack Sparrow but he'd told them that story – how the mermaid sounded, the deep cries and wails, the singing for him to dive down and join them – the night after the battle aboard the Dauntless. After that night and still now, he knew he'd never be able to not believe without any doubt ever again.

He drained his cup and called for another drink, taking it in silence and drinking again. Murtogg and the boy looked at him.

"In the moonlight," he said. Murtogg looked at him, and he knew his friend, the dearest in the world, knew what it was exactly that he meant by that.

"In the moonlight?" the boy asked.

"In the moonlight," he started again, taking another drink to fortify himself, "In the moonlight you could see the pirates for as they were. All bones and skin and rotten...rotting..."

"Rags of flesh," Murtogg whispered, taking a drink. "Cutting right through them."

"They healed right back, what there was to heal. No blood."

"Not until the end, when the curse broke." The boy kept staring, something new and bright behind his eyes as they kept on about the cursed pirates.

"His heart," Mullroy whispered, leaning in close, too drunk now and finally drunk enough, "one of the pirates, you could see his heart right there, not beating."

It wasn't so long ago that he'd have laughed and laughed hard at that at the idea of fighting pirates cursed to never die and shown to be living ghosts in the moonlight unless the blood of all be shed, but he had indeed fought pirates cursed to never die and shown to be living ghosts in the moonlight unless the blood of all be shed, and the world seemed now such a bigger place than it had been not so long ago.

And now, standing side-by-side with his friend in the face of so many stories that might now be true – or sitting in an inn, drinking to keep the dark out for just a short while – the idea of the size of the world, with such strange things in it, scared him more than what he'd seen.

For if he'd seen such pirates, what else might be true, if only to exist to give them such a curse…


End file.
